Larry Krueger hosts “The Krueg Show” on YouTube & Spotify and does some hosting on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco – but he’s also good friends with Adam Peters’ agent, Doug Hendrickson, so he was the perfect choice to introduce the new Commanders GM to the Junkies.
“He’s a proven entity, he’s a good family guy and a really good personnel guy. I think this is a great hire by the Commanders,” Krueger said. “They need to re-establishe themselves as the iconic brand that they were under Joe Gibbs and Jack Kent Cooke, and Peters will help do that, because he'll find players. It's no secret in the NFL, you got to find players in the draft and you got to develop your roster, and I think they’ll make good picks and it will lead to a lot of success. He's really good on Day 3 and after the draft, and eventually they're gonna get players, they're gonna win, they're probably gonna move out of FedEx Field, and the value of that franchise is gonna skyrocket.”
San Francisco has found several studs on Days 2 and 3 of recent drafts, but how much influence has Peters actually had in that process?
“Unless you're sitting inside that war room, it's really hard to say who was responsible for what, but John Lynch had no experience as a personnel man, and I think he deferred to Peters quite a bit,” Krueger said. “The talk here in San Francisco is that Adam Peters really pounded the table on the Ambry Thomas pick, and I know Thomas has kind of taken a circuitous route to success, but this year he really busted out, and it's been one of the keys for why the 49ers have been really good on defense. So, I think he had a lot of say and input, to be honest. He was the highest ranking personnel assistant under Lynch, who deferred to his guys, and Peters was his top guy. So, I'm really actually quite surprised that he left.”
Many, including EB, have posited that Bob Myers was part of the search committee because he has the UCLA/Bay Area connection to Peters, who was the No. 1 target - so does that maybe mean Texans OC Bobby Slowik, a former long-time 49ers assistant, might be the leading choice to become Commanders head coach?
“He’s young, but he's got a ton of experience, and it’s a football family. I think Kyle Shanahan, as a member of a football family, really believes in hiring guys who come from football families, and Bobby is the son of Bob Slowik, a former DC for a few teams,” Krueger said. “He worked for Mike Shanahan as his first coaching position back in 2010, so even though he's a young man, he's been in the game for a long time. He’s really sharp and started as a quality control coach, which is kind of the beginning of the road for any coach, starting at the bottom, and the Niners put him as their defensive quality control coach because Shanahan's a believer that you're not really a great offensive play caller until you have a real understanding of defense. I think that really helps Slowik, and I think he’d be a great hire. There will be some mistakes made along the route because he is a young coach, but I think the trend in recent years is the better organizations are hiring offensive guys who can be play-callers, guys who could be head coach and offensive coordinator if they need, if that's the way it needs to go down, and I think Slowik has those capabilities.”
And with the book closed on Peters talk, the Junks had to ask Krueger about Chase Young, who got a mixed review for his time in San Fran so far.
“Chase Young has just been okay, he hasn't been great,” Krueger said. “He’s still good at setting the edge and better than what they had, and he's definitely helped and fit into the locker room well because he's serious about his craft, but he doesn't have the kind of bend and flexibility he had pre-surgery. He’s been good, not great, and he hasn’t been the player he was in his early NFL career or in Columbus, but right now, they need him most; how he plays in these playoffs will really define his tenure here, and my guess is he won’t be re-signed, but the price tag was right at a third-round pick.”
Krueger also weighed in on where Peters and the Commanders may go with the No. 2 overall pick and more, so take a listen to it all above!